Ford GT40 - Kit Carchives

When the Ford GT burst onto the scene in 1964, American racing enthusiasts once again had something to cheer about. The U.S. hadn't had a serious challenger in international endurance racing since the Cunninghams of the 1950s. Like Cobras, the Ford GT chassis and underpinnings were built in England (under the direction of legendary team manager John Wyer), while the basic engine was from the new Fairlane.

But all was not rosy. The first Colotti gearboxes were notoriously unreliable. The body, penned in Dearborn, was famed for extreme front-end lift, making the first prototypes deadly at high speeds. Plus, the first engines were weak aluminum-block 4.2L pushrod V-8s from the 1963 Lotus Indy car program (not the later four-cam Indy engines). The combination of iffy aluminum mills, fragile gearboxes, and bad aerodynamics made the first 1964 GTs the laughing stock of the racing world.

Thankfully, help was on the way. The Anglo-American team quickly developed a stable nose shape, added a tail spoiler, and swapped in the cast-iron 375hp Cobra 289 with Webers that Shelby American had developed for the Cobra program. Suddenly, the Ford GT (never officially named the GT40) was much more competitive with the Ferraris that had been ruling the world's racetracks for years. In 1965, Ford desperately shoehorned 427 FE stock car engines into a few GTs and rushed them to Le Mans without proper testing. It was a fiasco, as they all succumbed to teething problems, leaving the win to a Ferrari 250LM entered by the North American Racing Team. (Ironically, the first victory at the Le Mans 24-hours by an American team was won in a Ferrari.) But the 289-powered Ford GTs did win at Daytona and picked up a second at Sebring, so not all was lost.

The next year, Ford was better organized. The Ford GT Mk II was an upgraded model built to take the 427 and equipped with a stronger Kar Kraft T-44 transaxle. With development they proved quick and durable, taking a one-two-three victory at Daytona. Ford backed this up with a first through fourth finish at Sebring. Ferrari won at Monza, but a Ford GT was second, while at the twisty Targa Florio a nimble Porsche 906 took the win. The high-speed Spa circuit in Belgium was the setting for a Ferrari upset, but the big surprise of the year was a Chaparral win at the Nrburgring 1000K race just before Le Mans.

It was do-or-die for the Ford team. The word had come down that if they didn't win Le Mans the river of Ford money would be dammed forever. Luckily, three Ford GT Mk IIs streaked around to a photo finish. It was party time for American fans! Not only that, the Ford team also won the FIA Prototype Trophy.

It was going to be hard to match that in 1967, but Ford had a new weapon. The Ford GT Mk IV was an all-new car with a super aerodynamic body and an aluminum honeycomb chassis to save weight. The car had lots of development problems but came good at Sebring and Le Mans, the most important events to Ford. At the end of the season Ford withdrew and turned the GT operation over to Wyer.

The big 427-powered prototypes were outlawed for the 1968 season, but Wyer developed the old 289-powered Ford GT Mk I into a winner. Against overwhelming odds he bested the factory Porsche team to take not only Le Mans, but also the points championship in 1968. The next year he took Le Mans again, making it four in a row for the GT!

Ford also sold some street versions of the GT. Most were simply Mk Is with less powerful engines, but there was also a short-lived Ford GT Mk III that had an extended body (to hold more luggage), canted quad headlights, and other street equipment. Only seven were made. Contemporary road tests depicted it as a quality-control disaster area.

The New Ford GT
In 2002, Ford unveiled a modern "continuation" of the Ford GT concept that was intended only for street use. It was bigger, heavier, and powered by a supercharged 5.4L version of the Ford "modular " engine. With 550 hp, it was a screamer. They sold for a list price of $150,000, which the dealers used as a starting point before they added healthy premiums. When the first ones hit the showrooms in 2003 they started a stampede, but they were only built for a year. The new Ford GT is highly prized by collectors today.

First Kit Clones
The first 1964 Ford GT prototypes were lovely but lethal. The body had no tail spoiler and the nose was bereft of a spoiler or special shaping that could have produced needed downforce. However, photos of the upcoming challenger had been flooding automotive magazines ever since the first mock-up was completed, so every car nut on the continent knew what it would look like. Fiberfab was a fledgling kit car manufacturer launching a small sports car based on VW running gear, and they figured the new Ford GT had styling that enthusiasts would crave. The Fiberfab Aztec came out in 1964 and, although not an exact replica, it mimicked the lines of the first Ford GT. The Aztec was a huge success by kit car standards, with hundreds, perhaps thousands, sold. They are seldom thought of as Ford GT replicas, since few today remember the first Ford GT prototypes before they were updated.

When the Aztec began to fade in popularity, Fiberfab replaced it with an upgraded version, the Aztec II. This looked a little more Ford GT-like, with a tail spoiler and a longer nose. They followed with an all-new car called the Avenger. This wasn't a Ford GT replica, but was heavily influenced by it. The Avenger was sold in various versions based on VW or Corvair power, and there was even a V-8 model with the same body called the Valkyrie. Thousands of Avengers/Valkyries were sold in the 1970s.

Kellison built the first semi-accurate clone of the Ford GT in the mid-1960s. Called the GT40K, it wasn't exact but looked fairly close. Most were built to go on VW floorpans, but a few came with tube frames mounting V-8s bolted to Corvair transaxles. GT40Ks were built until the early 1970s. Very similar kits were sold at the same time by Sports Racing Equipment (as the Sebring Mk III) and the Scorpion Motor Company. Kellison, SRE, and SMC were all located in California.

The development of Ford GT replicas (and other mid-engine V-8 kits) was slowed by the lack of suitable transaxles. In the 1960s, the best box came from the Corvair, but it was difficult to mount and could only hold about 300 hp. Later, Porsche 911 and 930 gearboxes were modified so that they could be turned around, but the stock ratios weren't ideal for a V-8 engine. Also, having them modified for mid-engine use wasn't cheap. The Porsche 914 gearbox was already set up for mid-engine use but wasn't very strong. The other choice was the beefy ZF transaxle installed in Panteras. (The last original Ford GT Mk Is had used a different, sequential ZF gearbox.) In the 1980s, the Pantera boxes could be bought out of wrecked cars and were later put back into production. In the early 2000s, some GT kits used Audi transaxles, but there were durability problems. The Audi transaxles are seldom seen today. Many English kits used the Renault 30 transaxle, but parts for this unit were scarce in America. Today, the Porsche and ZF gearboxes are still available, as is an expensive replica of the Ford T-44 gearbox.

English Invasion
Great Britain launched the current crop of more accurate Ford GT clones. One of the first high-quality English replicas was the GT40 Mk V, sold by Safir Engineering beginning in the early 1980s. Safir obtained the rights to build Ford GT Mk I replicas from John Wyer's partner John Willment and fabricated steel monocoque chassis similar to the original. Safir was licensed to continue using chassis numbers in the same sequence as the original Ford GTs. Five Mk II versions were also constructed with Ford big-blocks, plus one aluminum-chassied roadster. Due to their high price, only 40 Safirs were built.

KVA came out with its GT40 kit in 1982. KVA was started by Kenneth Atwell, who splashed a mold off an original car when he worked for Ford of England. They made replicas of the popular Mk I and the only Mk III replica ever sold. Most GT replicas that followed were splashed off of KVA bodies. The first KVA kits were very basic, consisting of a body, a frame, and a list of parts to find on your own. KVA-licensed kits were built and sold in the U.S. by Integrity Coach Works and Sabre Automotive in the 1990s. Most had Porsche 911 transaxles. In the late 1980s, the English Dax kit car company had also sold GT kits based on KVA bodies.

Other English Ford GT kits were sold by GT Developments (GTD40), who built both Mk I and Mk II versions in the early 1990s. These used Ford, Chevy, or Rover V-8 engines and Renault transaxles. This kit was also sold as the GTR40 by GT Reproductions in Canada. Another Brit kit was built by Tornado Sports Cars, which sold its TS40 kits through an American division in the late 1990s. It used a steel tube space frame with Ford, Chevy, or Rover engines and Renault transaxles. The most recent British kit to be imported is built by MDA in Mk I and Mk II form.

From Switzerland came the most contentious GT clones, built by eccentric stylist Franco Sbarro. These look quite convincing and some had a number of original Ford GT parts. This has lead to much confusion (and legal action) concerning the parentage of these cars.

Awesome Imports
One of the first kits from Down Under was the Concept GT from New Zealand. Imported to the U.S. in the early 1990s, it had a semi-monocoque steel chassis with Ford V-8s and ZF transaxles. It was followed in the early 2000s by the Roaring Forties kit, featuring an Mk I body and a space-frame chassis. Early ones had Audi transaxles.

California Advanced Vehicles (C.A.V.) sold a GT in the early 2000s based on the English GTD40 kit, but built in South Africa. They were sold in turnkey-minus form. Recently, South African-based Superformance has introduced extremely accurate SPFGT Mk I and II replicas that are also sold in turnkey-minus form.

American Gt Clones
Lee Holman, son of Holman-Moody founder John Holman, also built a short run of hyper-accurate Ford GT Mk II replicas in the 1990s. He started with 15 chassis and may still have some left. They are exact replicas and pack 427 Ford FE engines. Holman-Moody raced Mk IIs and Mk IVs for Ford in the 1960s.

Ford GT kit fever hit the American kit car industry in the late 1980s. One of the first kits was from ERA, who built visually exacting replicas of Mk Is (including the flared-wheel versions run by the Wyer team) and later added clones of the Ford GT Mk II as well. The ERA replicas have monocoque chassis, ZF transaxles, and are still in production.

In the early 1990s, the old Kellison GT40K body design was used on kits built by LA Exotics. These used small-block Fords with Porsche 914 transaxles and Thunderbird rear suspension pieces. And in the late 1990s T-3, a kit car company in Colorado, introduced a similar budget kit. Neither is still in production.

Lone Star Classics built a single prototype of a V-8 Ford GT replica in 1997. The LS-40 had a strong tubular chassis, a Ford 302, and a Porsche transaxle. It was longer and wider than original to increase interior room, but the project was cancelled due to cost. Lone Star has recently been experimenting with a new, shorter LS-40 kit based on Ford Focus running gear.

Fiero-based GT replicas have a small following. North American Fiberglass developed one of the first in the 1990s. These were built on standard-length Fiero chassis with normal-looking GT noses and tails, but the abbreviated center section keeps them from fooling experts. Auto Sport Performance Products (ASPP) in Arizona later inherited the NAF kits. A similar kit, the GT4T, is now offered by V-8 Archie.

A recent addition to the Ford GT clone craze is Active Power, who is offering Mk I and Mk II replicas using bodies made by Hough Composites. The latest news is that GT40 kit manufacturer Race Car Replicas (RCR) has shown a prototype body for Ford GT Mk IV replicas, the first ever produced. If you want something really different in a Ford GT clone, this is the one to have. But any GT replica, old or new, is worth having!